The Ink Truck: A Novel

By: William Kennedy

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Synopsis: A &“wildly funny&” novel of a monumentally unsuccessful newspaper strike in 1960s upstate New York from a Pulitzer Prize–winning author (People). The newspaper strike has stretched on for more than a year. When it began, the Guild boasted over 250 members. Now, they&’re down to eighteen, with only three truly serious about the cause. Their leader, Bailey, is a columnist with an outsize sense of his own importance and a hatred of scabs that borders on fanaticism. Married to a roller derby queen, but smitten with one of his fellow radicals, Bailey is on a path of self-destruction that could take the entire city&’s newspaper establishment down along with him. And that&’s just what he has in mind. With the cape-wearing old-school Rosenthal at his side, Bailey embarks on a mad mission: hijacking the newspaper&’s entire ink shipment and dumping it in the snow. But he&’s hardly taken his first step when the scheme spins out of control, trapping him between armies of gypsies, scabs, and the wildest hippies New York has to offer. Set in a city closely resembling his native Albany, the fiction debut of William Kennedy is &“a bawdy Celtic romp,&” foreshadowing the wit and imagination that marked his literary career (Time).